


Once and Future King

by hulklinging



Series: The Stowaway [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast), The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: (it's Martin's mom), Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, And Martin meets him in college, Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, The Mechs are Jon's college band, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:00:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22370680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hulklinging/pseuds/hulklinging
Summary: Martin's mother dies.He assumes that means he'll lose everything else, too.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Series: The Stowaway [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1610377
Comments: 16
Kudos: 378





	Once and Future King

**Author's Note:**

> I had an idea on the bus and sat down and now I have a whole series of one-shots planned out, I dunno what else to tell you, man.
> 
> This is kinda in the middle of this AU (perfect place to jump in, right?). All you need to know is that Martin went to a Mechs concert, fell for Jonny, got to meet him out of character and fell even harder.
> 
> This is inspired by Once and Future King, off of The Mechanisms' album High Noon Over Camelot, and also by episode 159.

Martin stops, staring at the man sitting on his bed, looking sheepish as he grips at a guitar.

“Tim let me in,” he says, voice clipped, how he gets when he’s nervous but trying not to show it. Something in Martin cracks, the fog he’s been walking through since the home called him still thick but sitting just a little less heavy in his lungs, now.

“You weren’t returning my texts,” Jon says, and the words would sting with disapproval if Martin couldn’t catch the worried tone tucked underneath the chiding. “I was…”

He trails off, strums the guitar absent-mindedly.

They’re too new at this, this thing between them. Martin knows it’s his turn to say something, to comfort, say that he’s alright, that he’s hurting but everything will be fine, to offer Jon some tea for coming all the way over here, with the weather as bad as it is. He knows he needs to do one of these things, because otherwise this thing that they’ve both been so cautiously feeding is going to wither, its roots aren’t deep enough to survive this kind of storm.

He should say something, but he’s so tired, he’s forgotten these steps.

“...Sorry,” he says. It’s such a short word, doesn’t really fit everything he has to apologize for, all of his shortcomings, every single text he stared at and left unanswered. It’s been… a week, maybe, since he’s talked to Jon, and all he can muster is one stupid, pathetic little word. He repeats it, on the off chance that it will help, that it will be stronger if he says it again, mean more, be  _ enough _ to save something that could have been the best thing in his life, if they’d just had the time.

And once he’s said it twice, he can’t seem to stop saying it, spilling over his lips like poison, like all the terrible things in him he can’t seem to get out. He closes his eyes tight, because he doesn’t want to watch Jon’s face twist, doesn’t want to watch him leave.

The guitar’s put down with enough force that the strings protest, and Martin flinches. He doesn’t expect the soft, tentative hand on his shoulder.

“Martin,” says Jon, gentler than Martin’s ever heard him. “Martin, look at me.”

Martin opens up his eyes, can feel tears threatening but holds them back. He can’t start crying now, hasn’t let himself cry since he found out, and it’s like he’s got an ocean inside him, tide rising, threatening to drown him if he so much as touches the water…

Jon’s eyes are bright, brighter than they should be, in the fog of Martin’s grief. Martin wants so badly to reach out and hold him, hold him there, but doesn’t dare to move.

“What do you see, Martin?”

Martin sees his mother, dying alone because it was preferable to letting her  _ son _ hold her hand. He sees every time he let her down, disappointed her, every time he’s watched someone leave after they got to know too much about him. He sees the pieces of himself he’s left scattered, because he gave them away but people didn’t want them.

He sees… Jon, still standing there, a hand on his shoulder that feels impossibly, unbearably present.

He sees Jon, who asked someone he doesn’t get along with to let him in here, who hates to be pulled away from schoolwork and has been waiting for him for who knows how long.

He sees Jon, choosing to stay.

“I see you, Jon.” The words hardly sound like they’re coming from him, and yet they sound more like him than anything he’s been able to force out all week. That call had stolen his voice away, and Jon…

Jon had brought it back.

“I see you,” he says again, and crumples into his boyfriend’s chest, clutching at him as he cries.

Jon holds him. Doesn’t say anything, just holds him, until Martin’s tears have run their course. They leave him with a different kind of emptiness, one that is tender and too-close and completely devoid of fog.

(It will creep back, in the weeks and months that follow, but Jon acts like a lighthouse, catches Martin’s eyes with his light, guides him home)

It’s later, both of them tucked around each other in Martin’s twin bed, that Martin remembers the guitar. He looks at it, and Jon must catch him do it, because he clears his throat, his voice losing the confidence it had when he had talked Martin down.

“I… well, I had thought that if my own words failed me, I might borrow some.”

“From Jonny?” Martin says, enough doubt in his voice that Jon chuckles.

“Not directly. We’re… it’s from the new show. The one that’s not done yet.”

Martin hums, too tired to muster more words. Jon takes it as permission to continue.

“There’s… Well. Mordred… Arthur’s son. Arthur doesn’t recognize him, because when Arthur last saw his child, he thought he had a daughter.”

Martin’s heard bits and pieces of the story, from Jon and from some of the other Mechanisms. This… this part is new.

“Arthur… It would have turned out quite different, if Arthur had recognized his son. If he had listened to him. He could have saved them, maybe.”

There’s a long silence. Martin reaches out (he reaches out), and takes Jon’s hand in his own.

“I’d like to hear it,” he says.

Jon smiles. “It’s not… It’s not a happy ending.”

“I know.” Martin shifts, making space for Jon to lean over and grab the guitar, if he’d like to. “I’d still like to hear it, if that’s okay?”

“Right,” says Jon. “I… Yes. Right.”

His hands are a little clumsy on the guitar, and he insists on mentioning their plans for the full piece, how Ashes will sing underneath the narrator, how they’ll balance the instruments. Martin closes his eyes, imagines it as Jon describes it, but knows that this song will always be  _ this _ for him – Jonny’s voice spilling out of Jon’s throat, made soft by the patchwork throw and the air between them, accompanying himself, bringing the warmth of the sun into Martin’s small, dark room.

It’s not a happy ending, but Martin smiles anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Like bands and apocalypses and queer folk surviving them? Might I recommend the podcast I write for, [Crossing Wires...](http://crossingwires.blubrry.net/) Listen to it wherever podcasts are found, etc.


End file.
